February 24, 2018

Friday, Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) ended his week with a speech at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference). Two years ago, he was considered too controversial; this year they loved shouting “Lock her up” at the mention of Hillary Clinton and booing the seriously ill Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). DDT rehashed the past, misrepresented his so-called “accomplishments,” bashed the media, repeated the NRA’s positions on more guns, tossed in old clichés, and bellowed incoherent inanities. It was basically a campaign rally speech.

DDT’s working schedule is so slim that it’s padded by listing his daily “intelligence” briefing. He doesn’t even bother to read the President’s Daily Brief with pressing information prepared by intelligence agencies, relying instead on short explanations because of his limited attention span. Until publicity about his possible lack of attention to this information, the briefings were every two or three days. Other than these briefings, DDT’s four-day schedule was composed of these events:

Wednesday: Hosting a “listening session” with high school students and teachers.

Thursday: Meeting with state and local officials on school safety.

Friday: Speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC); hosting the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull; meeting with Rex Tillerson.

Wednesday DDT sat stony-faced while he listened to survivors of mass shootings, but he held a paper with five points, the last one “I hear you.” Even so, he has improved better since he praised the “turnout” for him in Corpus Christi after Hurricane Harvey in Texas and lambasted the U.S. territory’s debt to Wall Street during his visit to Puerto Rico before he threw “those beautiful soft” paper towels at his audience.

The exhausted DDT lacked energy to jet to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend.

DDT’s most recent in-laws are benefitting from “chain migration,” a DDT term for immigrants’ bringing their families into the U.S. to be permanent citizens and a practice that he wants to eliminate. Instead he wants “merit-based” immigration. DDT’s father-in-law, Viktor Knavs was a chauffeur and car salesman in Slovenia, and his mother-in-law was a pattern maker at a textile factory—neither positions which DDT describes as having “merit.” Melania Trump came to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa but found a modeling job and then needed a work visa before she self-sponsored herself for a green card because of her “extraordinary ability” as a model. A few years later, she married DDT 13 years ago.

Joe Cordova, principal deputy assistant secretary for HHS, is on administrative leave because his social media accounts featured conspiracy theories including the falsehood that Gold Star father Khizr Khan is a “Muslim Brotherhood agent.” For a year, Cordova has overseen daily operations for the Office of Human Relations, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Office of Security and Strategic Information, Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance and Operations Office and the Program Support Center. Targets of his attacks include blacks, Democrats, Muslims, and companies such as Budweiser.

Net neutrality officially ends on April 23, but opposition to the decision by DDT’s Ajit Pai is not disappearing. Attorneys general from 23 red and blue states accompanied by tech companies such as Mozilla are filing lawsuits to keep the equality of charges on the internet, and Senate Democrats are closing in on enough votes to restore net neutrality. Any legislation will also end up in court because the FCC has blocked states from laws inconsistent with its repeal of net neutrality. https://gizmodo.com/the-nra-just-awarded-fcc-chair-ajit-pai-with-a-gun-for-1823273450The NRA gave Pai a gun for his courage in overturning rules that stopped broadband providers from blocking or throttling content or creating “fast lanes” to provide better service for companies that pay for it.

Pennsylvania has a new redistricting map, thanks to the state Supreme Court, but Republicans hope to file a federal lawsuit. The U.S. Supreme Court already turned down the issue, but DDT is calling for a challenge to the new map so that Republicans keep the elections by contorting its boundaries.

Georgians, including the NAACP, are seeking to block or enjoin the 2015 state districting plan until the lawsuit against them has been resolved. The redistricting had been done solely to protect white GOP voters, which the Supreme Court has already ruled unconstitutional.

Federal prosecutors and the police in Washington, DC had help from far-right groups to block anti-DDT protesters, according to a new lawsuit. Evidence is a “doctored” video from Project Veritas used against six exonerated defendants from a rally during DDT’s inauguration. The lawsuit seeks information about information that police get from “private political non-governmental entities … to be used against the political opponents of those organizations.” Another issue concerns police working with the pro-DDT militia Oath Keepers.

HUD was forced to stop its ban on greater housing opportunities for low-income renters after a federal judge ruled against the federal agency that had tried to block people using housing vouchers from moving to improved residential areas. The agency also failed to provide opportunity for public comment before changing its rule. In another win for Public Citizen, visitor logs for the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Council on Environmental Quality will now be available for monthly review.

Nine government and nonprofit organizations are suing DDT for dropping grants for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP), a bipartisan project serving 1.2 million youth at 81 institutions in 39 states which created a dramatic decline in teen pregnancy. DDT’s decision saves $200 million in two years, $100 million less than the cost of DDT’s new “religious freedom” initiative to permit discrimination in health care.

New York City is issuing fines to “pregnancy services centers” that try to convince women not to get abortions and that spread false information about the procedure. PSCs are required to provide referrals to abortion, emergency contraception, and prenatal care if they lack an onsite licensed medical provider. Other states are siphoning off federal TANF funds that feed hungry children to give to these anti-choice clinics, largely run by volunteers, that provide little or no medical care.

In Schneiderman v. Griepp, an anti-harassment federal lawsuit, prosecutors played videos of anti-choice protesters driving away clients at a New York clinic. In one film, a group surrounded a woman before forcing her against a parked car and then against the clinic wall. The clinic developed an escort program of 12 to 20 trained volunteers for patients on Saturdays, peak time for aggressive protesters.

HHS has been forced to rescind its order prohibiting government-funded legal service lawyers from mentioning abortion rights to minors in custody.

Sexual Misconduct:

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who was considered a presidential candidate, has been indicted on a charge of felony invasion of privacy for threatening a woman with distributing a naked photo of her if she told the public about their sexual relationship. He said that he made a “personal mistake before I was governor” but “did not commit a crime.” The man who had bound the woman’s hands was led out of the governor’s mansion in handcuffs.

The men’s basketball team at the University of Louisville men’s basketball program must vacate its 2013 national championship and 2012 Final Four appearance because a member of the coaching staff provided prostitutes and strippers to players and recruits. The team was also stripped of 123 wins from 2012 to 2015, and the school are required to pay the NCAA about $600,000 in fines for revenue from NCAA tournament appearances during that time.

A report from Sports Illustrated details sexual harassment and assault, domestic violence, and retaliation against anyone reporting offenses throughout the Dallas Mavericks, starting with the former CEO, Terdema Ussery. The athletes and the team owner, Mark Cuban, are not involved. Despite complaints starting in 1998, Ussery stayed until 2015 when he went to Under Armour where accusations of harassment forced him out.